Thursday, August 21, 2014

Avalanche!

As always, please keep in mind that these ramblings generally reflect only my viewpoint ... and they may not be really current (I understand that's the way the mind works, sometimes, as it ages).

So-o-o-o … I was driving (some months ago, now) as we started out to run some errands.

At our first stop Phyllis gathered up a double armload of covers … not heavy, but really bulky … and headed toward the laundry/dry CLEANERS.

I sat behind the wheel and pulled out a tattered crossword puzzle collection … to, as is my custom, fill in a couple of minutes by filling in some blanks.

Then I glanced into the rearview mirror (I do that occasionally, so I‘ll be ready to go when Phyllis returns).

Oh, NO!

There was Phyllis on the ground … on the pavement, actually … and someone was helping her up.

By the time I got out of the car and to the building, she was already just inside the door … and the proprietor was trying to help her.

Her glasses were badly scratched, but weren’t broken. Her lip was bleeding, she had a cut just below her left eye, and there was a large discolored (bruised) area there, too, all the result of tripping and falling. While I was fumbling for a tissue to APPLY to her lip, another customer entered.

What perfect timing!

“I’m a surgeon,” he said, in a quiet, matter-of-fact voice, and started checking her out … advising against stitches for her wounds, but recommending some remedies … which we followed.

Meanwhile, if you happened to see Phyllis … and noticed that she had a black eye … I hoped you understood … I didn’t do it.

Meanwhile ... I’ve said it before ... and I’ll say it again: I can’t rhyme worth a dime.

It’s true. Oh, I can sometimes put a couple of lines together, maybe, but then I get so bogged down in the mechanics of it that I can’t tell the story I started out to relate.

So, I stick mainly to what I CAN do ... and that’s what’s called free verse. It has a certain rhythm to it, a certain amount of rhyme, though not always where expected (no end rhyme, for example), and I do ... sometimes ... manage to tell a story, or get a point across.

(Oh, how I envy those who have the gift for creating structured, rhyming poetry which tells their story for them!)

And now, Exhibit A in the case for "can’t rhyme worth a dime":

AVALANCHE!

When I wrote my first poem,It was really quite a chore,But I just had to show 'emI could do one, maybe more.Now poems spill off the endOf my DESK, across the floor.If this continues, my friend,They'll be sliding door-to-door.